“You are not gone yet.”
“But there is only one week left,” she said, “and despair craves company. Do you, therefore, give me your sympathy?”
“Wait till the week is gone,” he said, “and then if you still wish it, none will be sadder with you than I.”
XXIX
A few days later. It is early evening and the crickets are making a great bustle in the grasses, while a small, gray ape, swinging in a bamboo, is mingling its chattering with the cawing of the crows in the camphor-trees.
“Summer is passing,” said Hyacinth, “for everything is complaining.”
“I do not complain,” said Koma.
“No; life will always be summer for you. You are not going away from Nippon.”
“Are you?” he asked.